RANCHO BERNARDO  Matt Carey will never forget the wave of devastation that swept over him in June when a doctor surprised him with the news that he had Parkinson’s disease.

The athletic, 32-year-old mortgage broker had been struggling for years with undiagnosed symptoms of anxiety and sleep apnea, but Parkinson’s was a disease he associated with older people, like his late great-grandmother.

“When he told me, I was in shock. I didn’t know what to do. I just started crying right there in the doctor’s office,” Carey said.

Ten months later, Carey is a new man. A regimen of drugs have him feeling much stronger and he’s on track to run three half marathons this year. He’s also a newly appointed board member for the Parkinson’s Association of San Diego County. And he’s one of the leading fundraisers for the association’s Fighting Parkinson’s Step-By-Step, a 5K run/walk on Saturday in Point Loma.

“I exercise every day and I’m in better health than I’ve been in 10 years,” said Carey, a longtime Rancho Bernardo resident.

Fighting Parkinson’s Step-By-Step 5K Run/Walk

An estimated 1.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s is an incurable motor systems disorder caused by the loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brain. It causes tremors, rigidity and difficulty in walking, talking and physical tasks, and it can be progressive. Most people diagnosed with Parkinson’s are over the age of 50, but around 10 percent of patients are under 40, according to the American Parkinson Disease Association.

Although Carey had seen the effects of Parkinson’s — his step-grandfather, who is 86, has the disease — it never entered his mind that the health issues he began experiencing in 2010 could be related.

Carey said the problems began when his sleeping became erratic. He’d wake up every hour or two each night. The exhaustion made it hard for him to get through the workday and he was always stressed out. A doctor prescribed him medication for anxiety and when that didn’t work, he was switched to an antidepressant. He also was diagnosed with sleep apnea at a clinic where researchers discovered he was waking up an average of 32 times an hour at night.

In late 2012, he began experiencing tremors in his right arm. He gave up caffeine and what little alcohol he consumed, but the shaking continued. Then early last year, he was referred to a neurologist who asked Carey to do some finger exercises and walk down a hallway. When the doctor saw Carey shuffling his feet and not swinging his right arm when he walked, he immediately suspected Parkinson’s.

Carey said the initial diagnosis was frightening and life-altering, but the success of drug therapy — he takes a mixture of three drugs up to five times a day — and the support of his family and friends has helped him cope with the realities of the disease.

“I still have my ups and downs. When it’s good, it’s good, and when it’s bad, it’s bad. But I feel better than I have in years,” he said.

The medications have allowed Carey to get back to exercising and running regularly, which have boosted his energy and lifted his spirits. For the first time this year, he’ll complete San Diego’s “triple crown,” the Carlsbad, La Jolla and America’s Finest City half marathons.

He has launched a blog where he hopes to inspire others with his story. And he has used his business background (as a broker for M. Davis Financial) to raise quite a bit of money this spring for Parkinson’s research. As the leader of the 60-member Team Buddy, Carey has racked up more than $12,600 in pledges for this Saturday’s 5K walk. Team Buddy ranks second among all fundraisers for the event.

The walk will be emceed by sportscaster Dick Enberg and at the finish line in NTC Park, there will be a fitness vendor area, children’s activity zone, car show, food trucks, beer garden and dog adoptions.

There will also be what organizers are calling California’s largest neurological medical expo. Scientists from UCSD School of Medicine, Scripps Health, Scripps Research Institute, Sanford-Burnham, Salk Institute, the Neurology Center, Keck School of Medicine and Coastal Neurological Medical Group will be sharing the latest research news. Also, the Parkinson’s Association is hosting a “Life Enhancement” symposium with talks planned on medical breakthroughs, surgeries, advanced treatments and quality-of-life issues.

Carey said he joined the association’s board because he wants to be in on the efforts to find treatments to cure, or at least stop the progression of, Parkinson’s.

“There are doctors in San Diego who are doing stem cell research right now that is really close to a major breakthrough,” Carey said. “If there’s a cure, then it’s going to benefit me, but it will help a lot of other people, too, and I want to be a part of that.”